On the psychology of paranormal belief and experience

Download

Date

Author

Metadata

Abstract

The aim of the present dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of putative
paranormal beliefs and experiences. The introduction provides a conceptual analysis of
past research into the paranormal and establishes the rationale for our decision to focus
on a specific type of paranormal experience – precognitive dreams. The dissertation
evaluates several different hypotheses that have been proposed to account for such
experiences.
Chapter II describes an online dream precognition study testing the so-called psi
hypothesis (Study 1). Participants (N = 50) collected details of their dreams over four
weekly periods. Independent judges rated the similarity of the dream reports to
randomly selected target and decoy video clips. Compared to the chance baseline of 50
hits out of 200 trials, the obtained 64 hits was significantly more than could be expected
under the null hypothesis. However, based on a post hoc exploration of the data, we
concluded that Study 1 yielded no evidence of any anomalous cognition within
participants’ dreams. It did, however, illustrate the potential theoretical and
methodological issues with the psi hypothesis and the way it is habitually assessed.
Chapter III focuses on explanations of putative precognitive dreams in terms of
unconscious cognition. Two studies test the hypothesis that precognitive dreams arise as
a result of unconscious inferences about likely future events based on subtle cues from
the environment perceived in the absence of awareness. Study 2 explores individual
differences in implicit processing and their relationship to precognitive dream belief and
experience. Participants (N = 50) completed the serial reaction time task as well as a
series of questionnaire measures. Contrary to prediction, no relationship was found
between precognitive dream experience – or belief – and implicit task performance.
Following these null findings, Study 3 tested another prediction of the same
hypothesis. Participants (N = 49) completed a modified change detection task. The
modification allowed for assessing explicit and implicit change detection separately. The
results of Study 3 did not support the hypothesis, as the measure of explicit change
detection was not related to precognitive dream experience. They did, however, provide
a conceptual replication of the findings of Study 2, since we again found no relationship
between implicit detection and precognitive dream experience.
On a large sample of participants (N = 672), Study 4, reported in Chapter IV,
explores several demographic and sleep- and dream-related variables and their
relationship with precognitive dream belief and experience. We hypothesised that
precognitive dream experience is associated with erratic patterns of sleep behaviour.
Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that a higher subjective frequency of
precognitive dreams was associated with more nocturnal awakenings, higher dream
recall, lower overall sleep quality, and a higher likelihood of using sleep medication. We
also explored the demographic factors of precognitive dream belief and experience,
namely gender, age and education. Women were more likely to believe in the reality of
precognitive dreams as well as report experiencing them. And there was a negative
relationship between completed years of formal education and the precognitive dream
variables. Frequency of these experiences was positively related to age. Moreover, we
predicted that both precognitive dream belief and experience would be positively related
to the subjective importance ascribed to one’s dreams in general. We found support for
this hypothesis. Finally, the study investigated the relationship between the belief in and
the experience of precognitive dreams. Although, as could be expected, we found these
two to be strongly positively related, we argued that this relationship is not sufficient to
gloss over the conceptual distinction. In order to further develop our line of research,
we identify a need for a new measurement tool addressing attitudes towards one’s
precognitive dream experiences.
Study 5, reported in Chapter V, concerns the development and validation of such a
tool. A sample of people who reported having had a precognitive dream experience (N
= 330) completed an initial 49-item questionnaire. After removing items with
unsatisfactory psychometric characteristics an exploratory factor analysis coupled with
exploratory structural equation modelling revealed a well-interpretable 5-factor structure
with good internal consistency. Additional variables collected on the sample were
subsequently used to test the validity of the derived subscales. Overall, the predicted
relationships were confirmed by the analyses, which indicates both convergent and
divergent/discriminant validity of the questionnaire. Importantly, we found that
personal significance of one’s precognitive dreams was related to the frequency with
which they are experienced.
The final empirical chapter, Chapter VI, explores the relationship between
precognitive dream belief and experience, their personal significance, and memory.
Study 6 tested three hypotheses: earliest precognitive dream experiences would tend to
date to a period of identity formation in one’s life; the vividness of the memory of this
earliest experience would correlate with the frequency of precognitive dream experience;
and this relationship would be accounted for by the personal significance ascribed to
one’s precognitive dreams. All three hypotheses were supported.
Finally, Chapter VII summarises the findings of the six studies conducted for this
dissertation. We discuss our results in the context of the existing literature and highlight
the main theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions of our research.
Directions for future research are also provided.